China’s monitoring of activists surges post-Nobel

Dissident writer Yu Jie and his wife are prisoners in their apartment. Blocked by security agents outside their building, the couple have been living on deliveries of takeout food and groceries for nearly a month and voraciously reading books to stave off boredom, The Associated Press reports.

The Yu family and scores of other activists are targets of one of the most extensive campaigns of surveillance, house arrest and other harassment by Chinese police against dissidents in years. The clampdown was brought on by the government’s fury over the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo.